24 TWELFTH ANNUAL MEETING. 



The manor-house of Clapton-in-Gordaxo must once 

 have been of considerable importance, and althougli but 

 little now remalns, tbat little is bighly interesting. The 

 interior of the present house (which is only a portion of the 

 original one) has been thoroughly modernized, the last 

 remnants of antiquity having been cleared out in 18GÜ, the 

 old partition Avalls destroyed, and the very curious early 

 screen fairly turned out of doors. The original parts 

 of the house are of the time of Edward II , but the only 

 portions now remaining visible of that period are the door- 

 Avay under the porch and the buttresses ; but a considerable 

 part of the walls belong to the same work, and the very 

 beautiful screen (which has now been built up under a 

 stone arch in the open air) as the entrance to the garden, 

 opposlte to the entrance door. Mr. Parker saw no reason 

 to consider this wooden screen as any earlier than the arch 

 in which it stood, or the doorway, although Mr. Godwin 

 puts it a Century earlier ; the tracery in the head appears 

 to belong to the original work, and no such tracery was in 

 use in the early part of the the 13th Century, nor before the 

 time of Edward I. or IL Still it is probably the earliest 

 and niost remarkable domestic screen in existence. The 

 tower-porch was added in 1442, as appears from the arms 

 over the door, Arthur and Berkeley impaled. The chancel 

 of the church and the family chapel on the north side of it 

 were rebuilt at the same time as this tower. It very com- 

 monly happens that some part of the church is rebuilt at 

 the same time as a manor-house. The gate-house is of 

 the time of James I. 



After leaving this place, the party returned to Clevedon. 



A public meetiiig was held in the evening, at which Mr. 

 Dickinson, Mr. Freeman, Mr. Parker, and the Rev. F. 

 Warre, severally gave an account of the proceedings of the 



